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Here is the link to my Kahoot. In Activity Module 5 it asks us to upload the link to the forum, and I have also emailed it to Adrian.
I’d say we could all write a book on this topic! The benefits of using ICT in SEN are endless. A classroom teacher would be able to list many uses, then a S.E.T would be able to add so many more and then moving onto special class teachers or teachers working with medically complex children would have a whole other list of amazing advantages of ICT that we couldn’t have even imagined 20 years ago…or even 10 for that matter.
Just looking at the last year I found many advantages of using Book Creator with my children. The voice-to-text function was a great hit with the children who either couldn’t spell the words or who physically couldn’t type. These children would usually have someone else spell or type the words and now they were able to do it themselves. It was lovely to see their confidence grow.
I found the children taking more pride in their work and experimenting with different functions on the site to try ad better their work even more.
Although there are any amount of benefits with ICT there is also a huge list of challenges. Funding, sourcing, poor internet, lack of teacher knowledge, time, large class sizes, challenging classes…to name a few. I think the biggest challenge in my current schools is lack of knowledge by the teachers and lack of time to upskill. I think it comes down to how much importance we place on digital technologies. I think that the teachers to value to contributions it can offer will make the time to upskill.
Yes definitely! We all should be upskilling in ICT and all these new-age devices. My summer course last year was in ICT too and goal fo the year was to pick one tool and use it in school through out the year and get good at it. So I picked Book Creator and we have had a brilliant time all year. Learning Pathways was another I would have liked to try but I didn’t get the time. This year I think I’d like to practice more with Kahoot with the main goal being incorporating these into Learning Pathways.
I have been teaching now for 14 years. In my first 7 years I was a mainstream class teacher, mostly in the junior side of the school, and for the last 7 years I have been the S.E.T. between two small rural schools, so I cover all classes and ages. A test that I have always used is the B.I.A.P. – the Belfield Infant Assessment Profile. It assesses
1.Perceptual Processes.
2.Motor Development.
3.Early Learning Styles.
4.Language and Communication.
5. Social and Emotional Development.
The reason I chose to mention this assessment in particular is because this year it has become apparent to me just how accurate this test really is (when carried out properly). I have been using this test in my current schools for 7 years…so my first little junior infants that I had are now entering 6th class…and any child that was flagged by this test back in junior infants has gone on to be diagnosed with some sort of additional education needs over the years. The one exception we’ve had is a child in junior infants whos parent suddenly passed away before she started school, so understandably this child had a challenging start to school.
There are many pros to this assessment but the main con is that the last 3 sections are teacher questionnaires on how we see the child. So if you have a teacher who isn’t very observant etc they may not give true answers and therefore the end result for the child won’t be accurate.
I also like to use the WRAT as it covers many different areas. We would usually do it once a year and use it to support other assessments. For example, if we have a child who is scoring low in one of their standardised tests the WRAT then is useful when communicating with parents. I like how most of the test can be administered to many students at the same time.
